ENGINEERING

• Silicon Valley's Hewlett-Packard is funding a project to develop Boqueixón CESGA-Vedra.
• The project has the support of the General Directorate of Education, Training and Educational Innovation and the Ministry of Modernization and Innovation Xeral Tecnolóxico of the Xunta de Galicia.

In June, HP Labs, the R&D division of Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto, California, approved three projects in the area of "technology cloud and education" submitted worldwide. One of these proposals was raised from the areas of e-Learning Systems and Supercomputing Center of Galicia, aimed at assessing a solution based on cloud technologies to provide collaboration services and online learning networks Grouped Rural Centres. The other two selected proposals, which was funded by HP Labs, were made by an American university and a university in Taiwan.

Each year, HP Labs launched a call for various projects in collaboration with entities engaged in the research. The 2009 IRP HP Labs Call included a category on cloud computing for education attended by fierce competition in dozens of agencies, so this award has been very philanthropic importance to the world Spanish researcher. "For HP, these activities fall within the supporting R & D + i and the transfer of technology that have always formed the basis of our company's business strategy," highlights Isidro Cano, director of HP supercomputer in Spain.

The project has the active support and cooperation of the Xunta de Galicia through two departments: the General Directorate of Education, Training and Educational Innovation and the Ministry of Modernization and Innovation Xeral Tecnolóxico. José Luis Mira Lema, Director of Education Xeral was convinced that "the results of this project will provide high-interest information about using cloud technology in education as well as in response to the specific needs of rural school communities."

Cloud computing (or cloud) is a type of emerging technology that allows access to a range of computer services and respond to user needs in a flexible and personalized through the Internet. Users in this case, members of the educational community (children, parents, teachers) can access all services available in the system (applications, resources, etc.) Without being expert or having to install any software specific since all these resources and services running on remote servers configured "in the cloud (ie online)."

This system seems well suited to the needs and specific character of the Bundled Rural Centers (CRAs). A CRA is a public school located in rural areas, who teaches kindergarten and primary education, and has the peculiarity that is composed of several centers in different towns or villages (between 5 and 15), but works as a single school administrative and operational level.

This model works from the 90s in Spain, and gave viability to the maintenance unit of the old schools in towns where there were few children to justify a center with all necessary resources for each town, while providing quality education and a highly integrated center model in their local community.
PILOT PROJECT IN Boqueixón-VEDRA

The initiative will be held on CESGA, implement and evaluate a pilot project during the year 2010 - 2011 to facilitate access to resources and advanced online tools to facilitate collaboration among all community members of the CRA, the possibility of undertaking activities simultaneously at all sites "live" through the Internet, and actually allow it to become a "center 2.0, without doors or schedules, where the educational community to interact, at any time from any of the classrooms, from house, share resources, communicate, work together ...

The project "Virtual Cloud Rural Communities for Education" will implement and evaluate the possibilities of cloud technology in rural schools, where, on a virtualized, and scalable technology platform, will provide resources, materials and tools adapted to the school and its needs , allowing all members of the educational community access very easily to a space online through a web browser, which will be available and applications resources needed to provide educational activities, information and collaborative work between the different schools belong to a CRA. To do this, previously, we will analyze the needs of this particular group, and deploy those applications or resources to respond to your situation.

The model of software as a service (SaaS) technology enables cloud is not necessary to install the software on each computer, but is accessible to all network members of the educational community. This limits the software licensing costs and ensures that all needed resources are available in all schools and computers where they are needed. This also reduces the number of technical problems related to software installations and upgrades, knowing that these rural schools do not have technical staff that can solve these incidents immediately.

The project has a budget of 67,000 euros, of which 40,500 are provided by HP Labs, the remainder being contributed by the very CESGA.

The center selected to participate in the pilot project is the CRA Boqueixón-Vedra, with headquarters in Lestedo, but that includes seven schools within the CRA (Lestedo, Sarandon, Sergude, San Xián de Sales, San Fins de Sales, Camporrapado I and II).